The returns evidence checklist

Why claims come back reduced

When a customer returns a unit, Amazon books it back in under a disposition - sellable, defective, damaged, or carrier damaged. That disposition can affect what, if anything, you are owed. But if the unit then reaches your table, days later, the only person who can say what condition it was really in is whoever opened the box.

Most returns desks record that in a shared spreadsheet. Someone types the barcode into a cell with a status and a date, then sends the file to whoever files the claims. It looks like a working system. It falls apart the moment Amazon asks what the damage was, because a row in a spreadsheet is a record of what you say, and a photo taken at the table is evidence of what you saw.

A claim is only as strong as the evidence behind it.

Which kind of return is it?

The checklist below is for units that physically reach your returns table. On amazon.in that happens in two ways, and the claim rules differ between them. A third kind of return never reaches you at all.

Scroll the table sideways for the remaining columns.

Source: Amazon Seller Central, FBA inventory reimbursement policy (damaged inventory) (amazon.in, read October 2026).

Source: Amazon Seller Central, FBA lost inventory reimbursement policy (amazon.in, read September 2026).

Source: Amazon Seller Central, SAFE-T policy for Easy Ship, Self-Ship and Seller Flex orders (amazon.in, read September 2026).

Keep the three apart in your log. A damaged unit from a removal order and a damaged unit from a seller-fulfilled return can look the same on the table, but they are filed in different places with different clocks.

The five shots

Every unit graded as damaged gets these five photographs, in this order, before it moves anywhere. Five is not arbitrary - it is a small set chosen to show which box it came in, which unit it was, and what was wrong with it, which is what a damaged-unit claim most often turns on. Amazon may ask for something different or more on a particular case, so follow the request on your case when it differs.

Set it up in 30 minutes

returns/
  2026-09-02/
    [LPN-OR-REMOVAL-ID]/
      1-box.jpg  2-label.jpg  3-in-packaging.jpg
      4-damage.jpg  5-unit.jpg

GRADE EVERY UNIT AS ONE OF:

  SELLABLE     - resealable, no marks, goes back to stock
  DAMAGED      - unit itself is broken, cracked, stained, incomplete
  PACK-DAMAGED - unit fine, retail packaging destroyed
  WRONG-ITEM   - not our SKU, or not what the order says
  EMPTY        - box arrived without the unit in it

IF DAMAGED, PACK-DAMAGED, WRONG-ITEM OR EMPTY -> TAKE THE FIVE SHOTS

date_opened | lpn_or_removal_id | order_id | sku | asin |
grade | reason_seen | usable_qty | photos_taken | claim_route |
filed_on | amount_expected | amount_received | status

app.unilytic.in/warehouse/received-returnsFull size

Which claim, and when

The evidence column below is the minimum that decides each claim - it is not a shopping list. Take all five shots on every unit you grade as anything other than sellable, every time. Which claim you end up filing often changes after you have looked at the unit properly, and a shot you did not take is not one you can go back for once the box is in the bin.

Each window counts from the event named in its cell. Pick the column by how the unit reached you, not by what it looks like on the table.

Scroll the table sideways for the remaining columns.

Source: Amazon Seller Central, FBA inventory reimbursement policy (damaged inventory) (amazon.in, read October 2026).

Source: Amazon Seller Central, FBA lost inventory reimbursement policy (amazon.in, read September 2026).

Source: Amazon Seller Central, SAFE-T policy for Easy Ship, Self-Ship and Seller Flex orders (amazon.in, read September 2026).

Source: Amazon Seller Central, File a SAFE-T claim (amazon.in, read October 2026).

Track the outcome, not the filing

Filing a claim feels like the finish line. It is not. Update the status column every time something comes back, and use exactly three words, so you can count them:

PAID IN FULL PAID SHORT DENIED

The middle one is the point of the whole exercise. A claim paid short still shows as resolved in Seller Central, so unless you wrote down what you expected, you will never see the gap. Count your PAID SHORT rows at the end of the month and you will know whether this is worth doing at your volume.

The same thing, without the typing

Everything above is deliberately tool-free, and it works. What it costs you is re-typing: the barcode into a cell, the SKU off the label, the order number out of Seller Central, the claim status out of an email, and the photos out of somebody's camera roll into a folder that has to be named correctly at four in the afternoon on a day when 200 units came back. That is where returns desks quietly stop doing this - not at the decision, at the typing.

Unilytic is the version of this process with the typing removed. It is what I built for my father's returns desk, and it is the same four steps.

Scroll the table sideways for the remaining columns.

Any phone is the scanner, so there is no hardware to buy. And if someone else opens your boxes, the scanning screen is its own role: a Return Scanner sees the scan page and the returns log and nothing else - not your margins, not your Amazon connection, not your billing - and cannot delete a record, only ask a manager to. That is worth saying plainly, because the alternative most warehouses settle for is a shared login, and that is a real reason returns desks stay on paper.

app.unilytic.in/returns-reconciliationFull size